Term 2

Last weeks of term 2

Experimented with inking in Daryl's frames on computer in different programs to see which would be easier to do. Toon Boom made the most sense to try first as it is designed for this job. It is also considered as industry standard software. I have used flash a little in the past and am fairly competent with various controls in most Adobe software in general although Toon Boom proved quite different.

Although unfortunately there wasn’t much point in learning Toon Boom at this stage as the software wasn’t working properly – Toon boom couldn’t save anything. Although it has been reported to IT there was no reason to not start in a different piece of software. The obvious solution was flash.

I started with the first scene that has been drawn and scanned in by Daryl. We have named it ‘Glove Scene’. It has been a long time since I last used Flash so it took a bit of time to get used to the controls again. In all honestly i practically had to learn all shortcuts and tools again. Although I did remember that F5 and F6 keys create and edit keyframes, being the most important function.

I started by creating every single set of frames for every different frame drawn. This was two blank keyframes for every one image, unless otherwise stated by Daryl. (for example some scenes reuse the same body for a number of frames)

I then started drawing in flash using the pen tool over every single frame. I idea behind using this strategy is ultimately to understand how the final film will look through this method and also to give a good idea as to how long it will take us to complete the film this way.

Here is a clip of before I finished it.

It proved to take me three weeks to do this one scene. Granted it will be quicker to do the other scenes as a lot of this time was used getting used to Flash and the entire process. Unfortunately though we have to bare in mind that other members of the group will have to learn it too if they are to ink in also. This will mean they too will need this extra time to learn the program. I will of course be able to help with this but it still wasn’t an ideal solution as it would still require far too much time to complete all the scenes.

This week we met up with kieron and had a group meeting. Kieron thought it needed better structure, which may be a good idea to make sure the audience watching knows EXCATELY what is going on. We suggested together how things could fit in more and make more sense in terms of shots and story.

Kieron did suggest that we may need to have more dialogue in order to better set up the tv show. I completely agreed that this would make sense as the way it is now isn’t entirely obvious to the audience, although unfortunately Daryl didn’t wish to ask the voice artists for more sound. I personally felt that it was worth having, even if it meant finding another voice artist but unfortunately Daryl could not be swayed with the idea and so we had to settle with the ones we have.

Firstly I had to reconfigure pixel dimensions for each file to make them smaller again. Because I had to do this before it wasn’t a problem. Although it seemed other complications arose also.
Some scenes needed certain imagery to be above/below other imagery so that when animating the object would seem as though it passes underneath some parts. For example, in the scene with the leaves hanging over the background, which you shall see in a minute, I had to find a way to remove the leaves from the image so that when replaced a character can be animated underneath.

Again, the idea was to keep it on one layer so that I could easily remove it and save as a separate file to go over the background. Unfortunately, like the rest of the images, the file had dozens of unnamed layers.

This didn’t seem too bad at first, as it only meant going through each one until the right layer with the image I was looking for was on it. Unfortunately, it turned out that the other layers were affecting the look of the layer I needed to export. This would mean exporting the layer on its own would make the exported image look different than the final image design. This of course meant I had to locate the extra layers needed and modify them so could export the part as needed.

Again it wasn’t hard to do; it all just took up a lot of time which I could have been spent on animating.

In the end I couldn’t finish all the scenes I was given as time was running out and I needed to think about other projects so the remainder of scenes that I couldn’t finish were sent back to Anja to finish. (only one or two scenes. These scenes were only short though and hopefully would have been quicker to animate for Anja as she most likely understood her layer sequencing of her images better I did.

Here are the finished animations, they are all in one compilation. This is so that it was easier to upload to blogger.

Oh, and these are the actual videos I sent to Anja, so if you are wondering why there are so many periods where it stays still, well it is so the files can be put into animatic straight away. the timing gaps are fo voice overs, or where something else will be happening with the video.

We go the sounds back from the soun designer and they are hilarious!

I also animated the blockout for Daryl’s film. Me and Elisha cut out some key poses of characters to be proper utilized in the blockout. I then animated most of the characters and cameras and rendered the scenes out, Elisha then did a few shots also. I then took teh shots and put them over the animatic for timing. As you will see in the video it is not a full 3d blockout and includes some 2D animatic in also.

Here is the finished Animatic:

And here is the blockout:

For Anja’s film this week I was asked to animate propellers spinning round on a background for the bomb scene where the screen pans upwards.

I ended up spending a lot of time on this because of unforeseen complications. The file I was given was in separate layers. The idea behind this was so that the propeller layer could be easily exported as a separate image – good for animating. The background would then be exported as a separate image for the background on the scene. The propeller needed adjusting though, for example smoothing edges and changing transparency which went OK. The problem I had was when trying to render the final scene out after animating. I realised I hadn’t checked the pixel dimensions of the file, which turned out to be around 4000 x 2000 pixels!!!

Of course because the pixel dimensions were so great it meant rendering would be impossible. This meant I had to lower the pixel dimensions manually and re animate everything.

Eventually, after all this I finally got it rendered, here it is:

This week we (Daryl’s group) met up with a sound designer to look at our animatic. We showed him scenes and have given him some god ideas for sound FX. All we do now is sit back and wait for the sounds.

I’ve also tweaked up the animatic to Daryl's new storyboard:

This week I have worked on Anja’s animatic and Daryl’s Animatic.

Anja had already started on the animatic for her film already and I worked alongside her to make sure the rest that I did was in time as to how she would want it.

Here is the animatic:

For Daryl’s animatic I helped the other members create a rough audio script for use with the animatic. This not only helps me with timings for the shots but also helps us when we look back at the animatic so see what does/doesn’t make sense. Etc etc.

With this I then edited up the first animatic.

Here is this animatic:

This week I experimented a little with creating a nuclear explosion from within Maya. It wasn’t very hard to do as there is a preset within Maya, but still could be useful later on.

(show maya test)

I have also tweaked up my bomb background as requested by Anja. She said she wanted it wider to compensate with widescreen televisions. She also wanted me to add a bit underneath the bomber texture with a texture showing the girls mind.

For this, I decided to use imagery of the inside of human eyes and other random imagery of human body (that would go well) such as several pictures of veins and cloudy imagery over it to help portray it is her mind... like seeing light through closed eyelids.

None of these images were finalised, only experimented with for design purposes.



Anja also wanted me to add in famous imagery of building/signs from Hiroshima so I added a couple within the city.